DeathWeb (Fox Meridian Book 3) (35 page)

Kit dispatched a copy to see what Vali wanted at one in the morning.

Vali’s Homestead, Niflhel.

Kit appeared on the shores of the lake and looked down to check that her outfit was the more suitable, loose tunic which Vali had designed for her. Really that was not important, under the circumstances. She needed to see what he wanted and then return to hunting for Chantal. She turned around and there he was, smiling at her from the path to his little, Viking-style homestead.

‘I received some data,’ he said. ‘I believe you might be interested in it, though I’m not really sure what I’m looking at.’

Kit padded up the path on bare feet. ‘
You
don’t know what it is?’

‘All right, I know what it is, but not who I’m looking at or why.’

‘Then let me see.’

‘Over a little mead,’ Vali replied. ‘I haven’t seen you in ages.’

‘I’ve been busy,’ Kit replied. ‘I
am
busy and don’t have time for your games.’ She relented a little when she saw his face fall. ‘I’ll have a little mead. Half a cup. There’s a girl missing and I need to find her.’

The slim, blonde, rather boyish figure straightened and rushed to the mead bottle. ‘A girl missing? In that case, maybe I’ll be of more help than I thought. That scroll on the table.’

Kit settled on one of the wooden chairs at Vali’s table and picked up the scroll resting there. It was all just the viron’s way of representing things in a suitable manner, but in this case when Kit unrolled the scroll, she found herself watching a video feed. She recognised the girl in it almost immediately: Chantal Dandridge was in running gear, stepping off a maglev train and then jogging out of the camera’s view. Another feed cut in showing her running out of the station, Oakdale on the HT-line. A third feed showed her heading for the nearby park. Kit checked the timestamp.

‘This is exactly what I need,’ Kit said, taking a cup from Vali. ‘Whoever your mysterious source is, they’ve come through once more.’ She raised her cup and clinked it against Vali’s before taking a drink. ‘I need to get this to Fox. She’ll want to get working on this as soon as possible.’

‘You said you’d have some mead with me,’ Vali replied.

Kit got to her feet, her eyes on his. ‘I did, didn’t I? Maybe an alternative celebration method would be better and I can come back for the mead when I have more time.’

‘Alternative–’ He was cut off as she stepped forward, stretched up, and kissed him. Her small, pointed tongue slipped between his lips, tasting the honey of the mead he had drunk. When she stepped back, he was blinking.

Kit giggled. ‘Much better than mead,’ she said, and then she was tripping out of the hut with the scroll, leaving a quite bemused Vali behind her.

New York Metro.

Hunting for the site where Chantal had been kidnapped in the dark was probably not a great idea, but the cyberframes Pythia employed cared little about light, and waiting for dawn would mean risking further contamination of the scene. Both Cant and Deveraux had been notified, but Fox had started working on the search herself because she had better tech and they all knew it.

Still, the searching largely came down to sending out Pythia’s robots and watching what they found from where Fox had put the vertol down in a parking area intended for autocabs beside the station. It was slow-going and if they had to start running full forensic analysis over the area, it was going to get worse. By three a.m., Fox had decided that she was going to have to get Cant involved to close the park down. That was when Deveraux turned up.

‘I figured that the vertol parked illegally beside the station would be you,’ he said as he climbed the steps to the aft cabin’s side door.

Fox stepped back from the door to let him in, and he handed her a large, plastic, insulated cup of coffee. ‘You seem to know the way to my heart,’ Fox said.

‘I suspected you might need it. This is quite a setup.’

‘Yeah. Captain Jason Deveraux, UNTPP, meet Pythia, my forensic analysis technician.’

Pythia’s voice came from the speakers around the cabin. ‘Good morning, Captain.’

‘Good morning, Pythia,’ Deveraux replied. ‘An AI. Related to the equipment you demonstrated at the conference, of course.’

‘Yeah. Pythia, give Jason the feeds from your frames. He can see how little progress we’re making.’

‘How are you proceeding?’ Deveraux asked as the various display images appeared in his vision field.

‘I’ve got three frames out, one on foot and two airborne. The flyers are running laser scans along the path north from here and doing multispectral imaging. The ground unit is following along behind to examine anything we see in the other scans. Nothing so far, but Pythia’s going over the scans as they come in and I’m hoping we’ll have something to work with soon.’

‘You will need to get NAPA in soon to close off the park.’

‘I sent a message to Cant when I sent one to you. I’ll send another before dawn saying we need the place isolated, but I’d really like to have something to go on before then.’

‘This is a very large park, and she could have gone anywhere.’

‘No, I’m pretty sure of the route she took. This is one of her favourites, stored away in LifeFit. The frames are following that route, but there are too many potential places he could have gone with her so it’s just a case of waiting for a result.’ She flashed him a grin. ‘You didn’t have to come out here, and you don’t need to stay.’

Deveraux shrugged and took the top off his coffee. ‘An extra pair of eyes never hurts.’

~~~

‘Fox, I may have found something.’ Fox looked up at Pythia’s voice, checked the time. It was just after five and the sky was still dark, and the image Pythia was displaying was a laser topology scan of some ground, the detail wound up to maximum which just made it indecipherable to a human.

‘That looks like a lot of weird clutter, Pythia,’ Fox replied. ‘What am I looking at?’

Beside her, Fox felt Deveraux stir. They had both nodded off, leaning against each other in the bucket seats in the back of the vertol, which were a lot more comfortable than they looked, especially when you were running on a couple of hours’ sleep. ‘What are we looking at?’ Deveraux mumbled. ‘I’m awake.’

‘Better open your eyes then. Kit, could you set some coffee brewing? Pythia, explain.’

‘The evidence is sketchy,’ Pythia said, ‘and open to interpretation. I have two lines of footfalls which are disrupted as they meet. I have an area of disturbed ground at the side of the path which
could
be interpreted as being from a falling body. I have the ground frame looking at the area near the fall.’ Another image display pulled forward showing a lot of false colour imagery from the robot. One of the first things Fox saw were several broken twigs on a bush.

‘I’m not a tracker,’ Fox said, ‘but that looks like someone pushed through between those bushes.’

‘And there are drag marks under the grass at that point,’ Pythia said.

‘Get half the forensic swarms out to that spot. Hold the ground frame where it is until we’ve run the swarms over that area. We’ll push through to follow the trail once we’ve been over the bush. Keep following the track with the air units.’

‘Immediately, Fox.’

Fox gave a nod. ‘It’ll be getting light in… ten or twelve minutes. I’d better wake Cant up and tell him we need some uniforms down here.’

‘It is fortunate that Inspector Cant seems to like you at the moment,’ Deveraux commented.

‘He doesn’t like me, but
really hates
the guy we’re hunting.’

The captain gave a shrug. ‘We work with what we have, non?’

‘Mais oui,’ Fox replied, grinning.

~~~

‘You know, you could have called me in on this sooner?’ Dillan’s tone had a bit of a grumble in it. There was a slight furrow in her brow suggesting that she thought Fox was keeping the investigation to herself. That was an idea which was, Fox admitted, not entirely without foundation.

‘I could have,’ Fox replied, ‘and then there would be two of us going over this data after having no sleep. It’s… seven now, you get to take over and follow Pythia through the analysis of the track she’s found. Expect Cant here in an hour.’ Dillan’s frown got deeper. ‘Just remember he’s actually on our side on this one.’

‘Okay,’ Dillan conceded. ‘What do we have so far?’

‘Pythia’s found the probable location where Chantal was taken down. It looks like she was dragged off the main track from there. We’ve got tissue samples which match the victim. You get dragged past a thorn bush, you get scratched. No indications of blood, yet, but she was obviously unconscious.’

‘Stunner of some sort?’

‘Probably. Uh, you don’t use LWOS do you?’

Dillan lifted an eyebrow, or tried to as both went up at least a bit: she really envied Fox for being able to do that Spock thing. ‘After what you and Kit found out about that thing, I’d have dumped it even if I
was
using it.’

‘Huh, okay, good point. I think he can use it to mask his appearance once he’s hacked into it. She probably didn’t see him coming until he hit her.’

‘We kind of leave ourselves open to that kind of thing, I guess. Everyone just lets v-tags change their environment, no questions asked. Someone clever could make you see whatever they want.’

Fox nodded. ‘One reason I screen them unless I trust the viron I’m in.’

‘You
don’t
trust them.’

‘Maybe it’s an age thing, or the Army. Did various courses on the use of VR infiltration as an attack mechanism. You can get paranoid when you know someone might be out to get you.’

‘I don’t classify that as paranoia,’ Dillan said, grinning. ‘I call that healthy caution. Okay, so you’re going to get some sleep while I handle the rest of the forensics?’

Fox glanced around to where Deveraux was sitting, his eyes on the displays Pythia was providing. ‘His place is closer so we’re going there. I’m sure we’ll get
some
sleep.’

~~~

Deveraux lived in one of the diplomatic suites in New York Tower, which he said was far too large for him. It did have three bedrooms, though one of those had been converted into an office. The other guest room did get some use, apparently, usually when his sister came down to visit.

The main bedroom had more of a lived-in feel to it. Deveraux was not especially tidy, which Fox thought was endearing in a man who appeared so suave outside his home. The bed was huge, firm, just perfect for the activities which had consumed them for an hour before sleep had claimed them.

Fox opened her eyes and checked the time. Five hours of unconsciousness, not so bad. She knew it was not really enough, but it would set her up for the afternoon at least. Behind her, she could feel Deveraux spooned against her back. Shifting her behind a little allowed her to feel more of him and she smiled. Making use of
that
would set her up for a few hours more. Yes, that would set her up real good…

An alarm tone from beside the bed put paid to that particularly pleasing way of waking up. Deveraux rolled onto his back at the sound, instantly awake. ‘Deveraux here. Report.’

A woman’s voice came over the speakers. ‘Captain, Bellingham here. We’ve had a report sent through from Miss Meridian’s colleague, Dillan. She’s completed the forensic sweep and confirmed that Dandridge was kidnapped from there.’

‘We’ll be right down, lieutenant.’

Fox waited for the tone which indicated that the link had disconnected. ‘Damn. I was really hoping for ten minutes to make use of that horn you’re carrying around.’ She shifted, swinging her legs out of the bed. ‘I could use a shower before we go look at Helen’s data.’

‘Then there is hope for my horn yet.’

‘Ha! Well, it saves water.’ Still, she connected through to Dillan as she padded through to the en-suite and remote accessed the shower controls. Dillan’s image appeared in-vision. ‘Got your message,’ Fox said. ‘Anything good?’ Stepping into the water streams felt good: apparently, diplomatic digs had good showers.

‘I’ve got tissue samples from maybe a dozen individuals,’ Dillan said. ‘Pythia’s running them now, but I’m not hopeful. I expect we’ll discover a lot of runners with skinned knees.’

Fox felt Deveraux enter the shower, just from the diversion of the water. ‘Nothing from the spot beyond the bushes?’ Deveraux’s hands landed on Fox’s hips, his fingers pressing into her flesh. She leaned forward, hands on the wall, and slid her feet apart.

‘Yeah, found something there, but for all we know, it’s a good spot for au naturel nookie.’

Fox felt Deveraux’s lips on her neck. His hands slid up to cup her breasts. She tilted her hips back and the invitation was taken, as was she. ‘Run them anyway. We might get lucky.’

‘You’re coming over?’ Dillan asked.

‘I’m coming,’ Fox replied. ‘Real soon now.’

~~~

‘Why do I get the feeling you weren’t talking about the speed you would get back here?’ Dillan asked, sotto voce. It was starting to get a little crowded in the back of the vertol with Cant there as well as Deveraux and the two Palladium investigators.

‘I’m sure I have no idea what you mean,’ Fox replied pleasantly.

‘You are just about glowing. That’s either really good sex or you do better on six hours’ sleep than I do.’

‘Five hours.’

‘Shit. Before and after. Lucky–’

‘Do not finish that sentence if you value your life. Anything come up from the DNA?’

‘Oh yeah.’ Dillan turned and waved up a bank of displays showing personal records. Cant and Deveraux shifted their attention to those. ‘Inspector Cant got us access to NAPA records, so we got the results from there first, of course. We got three prostitutes, all women so we can discount those. Two cops, both men, but we can discount those too. Too young, no foreign travel. An accountant and an electronics technician. Those two have old records for assault, and drunk and disorderly.’

‘Five unknowns,’ Fox said. ‘Did you run Grant?’

‘No DNA on record.’

‘He does have several sealed records,’ Cant said. ‘
Very
sealed. I looked into unsealing them and bounced. Canard took an interest, ended it.’